


Tin-Can-Cut

by ZiGraves



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Re-Education
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 09:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZiGraves/pseuds/ZiGraves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was always a new problem after re-education. The bandages remained the same, blood spots in new places but a precise and identical method of tying them every time. And the vacant, trusting look in Cecil’s eyes, that was always the same. And Cecil always came back, eventually. But everything else…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tin-Can-Cut

“Cecil, sweetheart, put that down.”

Carlos pried the tin can from Cecil’s hand. Every time he turned his back Cecil had somehow got hold of it and was clutching it tightly again. He sighed and tried to lead Cecil on before he could return for the bit of detritus.

The ice-cream Cecil been given after his re-education had melted over his hand in minutes, the cone collapsing into a soggy mess under the heat of the sun and the pressure of his thoughtless grip. Carlos had sat him down at the edge of the pavement and fished tissues out of his pocket to mop up, and while he’d been busy at that Cecil’s free hand had roamed aimlessly until it found something to pick up.

There was always a new problem after re-education. The bandages remained the same, blood spots in new places but a precise and identical method of tying them every time. And the vacant, trusting look in Cecil’s eyes, that was always the same. And Cecil always came back, eventually. But everything else…

Sometimes Cecil could speak, or not. Sometimes he recovered quickly, into sharp and cynical wit, or not. Sometimes he screamed, or not.

Sometimes he was absent. His body propelled itself and followed only one instruction at a time and Cecil was somewhere, but he was not behind those eyes. Carlos had tenderly put him into the passenger seat of the car, the first time it happened, and had sat in the driver’s seat with the engine off and wept because he didn’t know if Cecil was ever coming back.

It had taken an hour for him to stop, and then he’d been set off again when Cecil had reached blindly out to touch his knee and his back and his arm and his face with empty instinct. He’d sat quite still and let that Cecil wander over him, hoping something would spark and jolt Cecil back to himself, and eventually he’d had to drive home and put Cecil to bed instead because Cecil’s hands wandered over the dashboard, seatbelt, glovebox and window with exactly the same degree of interest as they had over Carlos.

That time, he’d woken with a blanket draped over his shoulders and Cecil downstairs making truly awful waffles with some sort of rice and potato flour mix. He hadn’t let go of Cecil all morning, that time.

It had happened a couple more times since, and Carlos had learned, hiccuping and sobbing, how to deal with it each time.

Take him home. Look after him. Feed him, if needed, he’d chew and swallow when directed but could never use cutlery by himself. The radio always played pre-recorded segments where Cecil’s show should have been, and Carlos could never stand to listen.

“Cecil, no - put that down, it’s all jagged, you’ll - shit, shit, okay, hold your hand up for me, up-”

Carlos pried the tin can from Cecil’s hand again, wincing at the messy laceration and the blood on the ragged open edge of the tin. He shoved the tin in his labcoat’s pocket, out of sight and harder for Cecil to reach without his notice.

“God, Cecil, your poor hand - oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry, I should have been taking better care. Come on, nearly at the car. You sit down for me and I’ll get the first aid kit out of the glove box - there, just like that, just sit there for me, well done-”

He didn’t think Cecil could hear him. He was sure of it, actually, in a way that was almost grateful because it meant Cecil, his Cecil, wasn’t stuck behind the glassy eyes of that shambling and thoughtless body.

But he spoke anyway. He cooed and reassured and promised, like to a child or a person in deep shock. Just in case. He had no proof of his hope, and without proof beyond reasonable dispute he could not risk being wrong. So he spoke, as much to himself as to Cecil, describing every little thing that was happening, guiding him and cajoling and sometimes slipping into outright pleading that was met, always, with that unfeeling expression and those trusting, uncomprehending eyes.

Carlos kneeled down on the pavement by the passenger seat and mopped gently at the bleeding gash. It shouldn’t need stitches, but he was thorough with his antiseptic wipes and he bandaged it into near-immobility all the same, kissing Cecil’s fingertips and apologising for letting it happen, apologising for the sting of antiseptic that Cecil hadn’t reacted to.

Cecil looked at him, as bland and beatific as a painted saint on a church ceiling. Carlos was struck by how most saints tended to be martyrs, and shuddered at the thought, bustling about and fastening Cecil into his seatbelt and carefully ushering stray limbs back into the car before he could close the door safely. He always locked the door, now. Sometimes when Cecil’s hands wandered they’d tug at the handle, and he’d had a bit of a scare that way once. Never again, after that once.

“We’ll be home soon. I’ll fix you up something to eat, just something little, and we’ll go to bed, I’ve got the bed all made up and the pillows fluffed for you, I know you had a sore neck last time. I got in a bit of vanilla ice cream, soft stuff, if you want to try any, and I’ll just do you something simple like a boiled egg and toast otherwise, the gluten free stuff isn’t that bad once it’s toasted…”

Carlos thought he was probably lucky that he usually only had to deal with food and sleep. He’d had to take of other needs just the once before, and had decided that he was utterly unequipped to deal with the body of a grown man that needed help with basic things like using the toilet. Somewhere else in the town were probably couples who knew each other’s mindless bodies both intimately and with clinical detachment from dealing with the aftermath of re-education, and he and Cecil weren’t one of those couples, not yet.

He knew they would be eventually.

He knew he only got away with as much as he did through being fairly antisocial and not risking any spread of dissent, but Cecil, poor, public, sociable, talkative Cecil got pulled in more than most for his minor but very public and very well publicised flouting of the labyrinthine laws.

Carlos risked his eyes off the road for a moment, just in case there was any hint of Cecil behind the empty face. He could only manage so much bland chatter before he ran out and had to - had to - at least look. Cecil was looking at his own hands and prodding idly at the bandages. He still wasn’t there.

Carlos turned his attention back to the road, and felt his knuckles go white as his hands tensed on the steering wheel.

The stairs in their shared home were more difficult when Cecil wasn’t present and had to be coaxed every step of the way, but he tended to stay put once he was put to bed, and Carlos was grateful for that much. It left him free to get to the kitchen and carry things up, it meant Cecil would not go entirely hungry even if he also wouldn’t be able to eat much. It meant not worrying that Cecil might come tumbling back down the stairs, or worse.

The ice-cream was a no-go, left melting and dripping from the spoon just the same as it had melted over Cecil’s hand when he was released. A soft-boiled egg, toast dipped in the yolk, was acceptable by whatever unknown metric was used to decide in Cecil’s absence.

He tidied away the bowl of melted ice cream, the toast crumbs and the empty eggshell, and kissed Cecil on his temple, just below the bandages. Cecil leaned into it, the same instinctive way he leaned into any kind of contact. He’d press into his pillows, or into the seatbelt, or into a lamppost if that was near his face, too, and there’d been a close call involving a cactus when Carlos hadn’t managed to pick him up on time after his release. Carlos had kissed him on the forehead once, and Cecil had screamed like a wounded animal, and he’d never ever tried that again while Cecil was recovering.

Cecil was still staring up at the ceiling when Carlos turned the bedroom light and gently shut the door. He’d sleep, eventually, but he never slept while Carlos was still there and watching over him. When he woke up, he’d be better again. He’d be Cecil again.

Carlos washed everything up with the patience of ritual movement, laid himself down on the sofa, and let himself have just the one, short, little, fearful weep before he tried to sleep it all off.

The sound of cursing woke him in a few hours, and he beamed to himself because it meant Cecil, the real Cecil, his Cecil, back in the body that Carlos had transported home. He followed the noise up the stairs toward the bathroom, with its mirrored cabinet doors layered over in thick black chalkboard paint.

It was Cecil’s very special brand of swearing, the sort that never went further than ‘damn’ or ‘jerk’ or ‘asshole’, and certainly never into so low a profanity as ‘fuck’. It was radio swearing. The radio voice was giving a litany of muttered unhappiness at the gash on Cecil’s palm.

“ - Darn it, ow ow, damn that stings, ah-a ouch. Ffff- _drat_ it. No, no, don’t stick to the scab, don’t stick to the - ow. Oh, curse the whole lot of you, sssss- _stupid_ bandage and that damned tin-can and curses upon pain-sensing nerves, _ow_.”

Tin-can?

Carlos froze halfway along the landing. The tin can was still in his labcoat pocket on the sofa downstairs, ignored once it was away from the risk of causing Cecil any more harm.

_Cecil knew it had been a tin can that hurt his hand._

Cecil had _remembered_ something from the empty fugue.

There were too many things attached to it for Carlos to parse all at once, his mind trying to extrapolate every possible option at the same time. Perhaps Cecil had always remembered, and just never said anything, but Carlos couldn’t think why that would be. Perhaps the re-education wasn’t holding as well as it used to and was giving Cecil bits of memory. Perhaps Carlos hadn’t cleaned the wound as well as he thought and there was some bit of debris still lodged there, and that was an infection risk, Cecil’s poor _hand_.

Perhaps Cecil didn’t trust him enough to say. Perhaps something stopped him from speaking to other people, some part of the cruel and forceful re-education.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Carlos was still pressed up against the wall when Cecil emerged from the bathroom, a fresh bandage sloppily tied on his hand. Neither of them quite managed to speak for a moment after their eyes met, and Cecil was the first to look away.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” he said, always his first words when he saw Carlos after a session with the Sheriff’s Secret Police.

“It’s okay,” was always Carlos’ response.

Cecil fidgeted with his bandages, picking at them in a way that was subtly different to the way he picked at things when his eyes were blank. Carlos reached out, slowly, and touched his elbow, and drew back when Cecil flinched.

“Sweetheart?”

“How much did you hear?” Cecil’s voice was muted, flat, and Carlos felt a little thrill of panic that this had finally been the time that something really went wrong, that the Secret Police had managed to do something really permanent and _damaged_ Cecil in ways he’d need an MRI and a neuroscientist to quantify properly. He swallowed the panic, and tried to answer as though a flat, muted Cecil that flinched from him was the most normal thing in the world and he was only _mildly_ worried by it.

“I heard the bit about the tin can. I was just wondering what to make of it - I didn’t leave a bit in there somehow, did I? You kept picking it up and you cut yourself, and I panicked.”

“I know. I… remember that.”

“Cecil, that’s fantastic! I think.” Carlos paused for the shortest of seconds, stuck between ongoing worry that something was wrong and elation that there was more of Cecil left than he’d feared. “Is it? I always assumed you weren’t - you know - _there_ , but if you remembered that, then, then maybe you’re recovering faster than you used to. That’d be good, wouldn’t it? Or... are you not meant to?” His words stumbled to a stop. “Cecil?”

“I’m sorry. I - I remember all of it, always, from the moment they let me out afterwards. I never wanted to tell you.” It was not muted, Cecil’s voice. Carlos could pick that up, now. It was restrained, which was something different. Barely restrained, at that. “I like the way you look after me. I can’t do anything when I’m like that, I’m just trapped in there, and I thought if you knew I was still there and still remembering everything you’d treat me differently and I like how you’re so gentle and how you’re always so sweet to me. And you’re honest. You get scared and impatient and I can see it, when you always try to hide that if you think I can see. You’re doing it right now. But you don’t when you think it’s not me.”

Cecil was picking and picking at his bandage, unravelling and re-wrapping it and fraying the edges as he did so. For all his tumbling monologue, there was still something held back in his voice.

“I’ll…” Carlos fumbled. He’d what? He’d treat Cecil just the same, now that he knew? No, he knew himself better than that. Cecil knew him better than that. “I’ll try not to,” he settled for.

Cecil nodded, blood-stained fabric still twisting between his fingers. There was some other unspoken thing, and Cecil wasn’t making the elaborately subtle gestures that indicated it was something best said out of the Secret Police’s earshot.

“What else?” Carlos asked, when Cecil was not forthcoming.

“You’ll be angry if I tell you.” Cecil’s voice was carefully modulated enough to arouse a vague and unhappy suspicion in Carlos. He didn’t know what he was suspicious of, exactly, but it had to be bad if Cecil thought it would make Carlos angry at him.

“You could tell me anyway and I could try not to be?” Carlos reached out again, more slowly than before, and was not sure where he was reaching for. He found an elbow and his thumb stroked over the outlines of bone. It softened Cecil, that little contact, enough that he stopped picking at his bandages and grasped at Carlos’ shirt instead.

“All right. If you’ll try, for me.” Cecil met Carlos’ eyes again at last, nearly unreadable but looking steadier now. “You’re the nicest anyone’s ever been to me, after. I didn’t want to risk you stopping.”

Carlos waited for the other shoe to drop, and got no elaboration.

“Um. Okay? Cecil, you know I love you. Of course I’m going to try and treat you nicely. I’m not… uh… why would I be angry? Wait, no.” Carlos slipped his hand further up Cecil’s arm and around his shoulder to cradle him in close. “Let’s go curl up on the bed and you can tell me there instead. You look like you’re going to fall over, standing there like that.”

Cecil followed without objection and curled into Carlos’ chest as soon as they sat down.

It came out, in little fragmented bits and pieces, that Cecil was not used to niceness in the aftermath of re-education. He was used to clinical disinterest from the SSP taking him home, or disgust that he’d been stupid and rebellious enough to flout his lawbreaking when he knew the changes in the law better than anyone, or treated as a blank target for venting all kinds of verbal frustrations. He wouldn’t name the one ex who’d taken advantage of his supposed amnesia and mental absence, and Carlos couldn’t speculate well enough to pick a suspect on that one. He was used to being left in the bathtub because no one wanted to deal with messy bodily functions when he could just clean himself up when he finally recovered.

He wasn’t meant to remember, was the thing that Carlos took away. And he didn’t like admitting it, because then he was even more helpless in the hands of whoever was assigned to take him home. And no one else ever remembered, or ever admitted it if they did, and he didn’t want to stand out as _wrong_ and in need of further re-education.

Well, Cecil had been right to some extent. Carlos was, definitely, angry. It was anger directed nowhere in particular, because there was no-one to pinpoint and demand a grovelling apology from, but it was anger all the same. Fury, really.

He pulled Cecil in so tight he was sure they must both have had sore ribs from the hug and kissed him hard on the temple.

“It’s not right,” he said, quiet and his voice shaking. “And it’s not going to happen again. Christ, Cecil, I can’t believe people would… do that.”

“Well, some of them are dead by now.” Cecil shrugged with the detached patience of a Night Vale veteran. “I think there could only be a few left who’ve been my caretaker in the last couple of decades, assuming that Secret Police officer was the same one all the time. Carlos, they mostly weren’t cruel at all - people have priorities, and faking affection around a walking coma patient isn’t really one of those priorities. I got home safe and that’s all that really mattered. And with all my limbs! I never even lost an extremity, I think I did pretty well. I just wish I didn’t, you know, remember everything.”

His morbidly cheerful radio cadence was unsettling when it so casually dismissed the abuse that perhaps his old caretakers hadn’t even realised they were doling out. And Carlos had to make an effort, one so strenuous he could almost feel it, to remind himself that Night Vale was a place where children were often eaten and people often kidnapped or sacrificed, and where physical integrity was not guaranteed on a day to day basis. It was the sort of place where a boy could have his original head cut off because his mother liked the new one better. Getting home in a fugue state with all of one’s limbs still on and no new ones sprouting was an achievement. The experience was unpleasant, but not physically scarring and was not even the worst emotional or mental trauma that could be experienced on a day to day basis just by existing in the town.

Still, Carlos couldn’t help shaking just a bit as he held Cecil close and stroked his back.

“Are you angry I didn’t tell you all this time?” Cecil asked, hesitant in a way that hurt.

“No, no, sweetheart, no.” Maybe a little hurt that it had been kept from him, all of it, but Carlos could not exactly blame Cecil for defending himself that way. “Just… I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen again, all right? I’m going to look after you and keep looking after you. I’m not… I’m not going to just abandon you in a bathtub. I’m not angry with you at all. I promise.”

Cecil made a noise that was mostly assent and buried his face in the side of Carlos’ neck, tipping both of them over backward to sprawl on the bed. His breathing softened into the quiet of sleep after a while, leaving Carlos to gradually lose all feeling in the arm pinned under him.

Carlos got his very first re-education a few weeks later, for repeatedly and aggressively browsing foreign holiday destinations for two without specifying return flight dates.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this and fancy a chat some time, my tumblr username is [zigraves](http://zigraves.tumblr.com) \- feel free to stop by and say hello.


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